Advice on starting a non-runner

[A_Nonny_Mouse]

Hi All,

I just bought myself a beautiful 1972 Elan +2
Unfortunately it is a non-runner

Overall the car seems in good shape, it has a galvanized chassis, the engine was rebuilt 10k miles ago, the head was refurbished 5k miles ago, and I have a stack of receipts for work and maintenence thats been done over the last 20 years which is quite substantial.

The previous owner had troubles with the car missfiring which eventually resulted in the engine refusing to start and the car being put in a garage for 5 years.

I'm guessing the cause of this is the carb o-rings being displaced as the carb has been put on too tight, or the mess of wiring which is supposed to be an ignition system.

I've got a good idea of all the things that need to be checked/fixed but would like some advice/tips on what I should look out for. Especially advice on how I should go about starting the engine for the first time in 5 years.

Thanks,

Andrew

[fasterbyelan]

You could try looking through previous topics, this subject crops up quite often (use the 'Search' facility). For example see - http://www.lotuselan.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=2329.

[jeff jackson]

Hi Andrew,
If it's anything like my +2 that was off the road for 4 years, it will need these things.
1) new set of points and condenser.
2) if you can get the dizzy out, whilst you are at (1) make sure the bob weights and springs move easily. Easy to strip down and replace.
3) new plugs.
4) Get a rebuild kit from the usual suspects and replace all the gaskets and diapraghms in your dellortos.
5) whilst you are at (4) make sure all the jets are not full up with crud. A careful poke around with a needle may clear them.
6) my accelerator pump was seized solid on one side, make sure they move again at(4) above.
7) amke sure static timing is set correctly.
Fresh petrol, after you have put it all back together again. prime the carbs with fresh stuff, and get plenty of fresh in the tank. If you can empty and clean out the fuel pump that would be good as well.
9) fully charge the battery.
) 10 keep your fingers crossed and turn the key......
Regards
Jeff 72+2

[john.p.clegg]

Continued......
For a while with the plugs out until you see some oil pressure registering on the gauge,then refit the plugs and try again......

John

[alaric]

Hi. I recently got my rebuilt engine running after a few years of it being an ornament in the lounge - well, dry storage was important wasn't it.

I had to prime my oil pump to get pressure up - twas a tad stressful at the time. I had cranked the engine for a while to no avail. I removed the oil filter, and cranked it again, and within a few seconds oil popped out. I put the oil filter back on and cheered when the guage came to life - relief.

I would put fresh oil in and crank it with no spark plugs in to flush the oil round. While doing this put each spark plug in turn onto its lead and place it onto an earth point - you should see a big fat spark - by the way I'd not hold onto the lead whilst cranking - but that is another way to find out if its working I suppose. As I'm sure you know, the ignition system is simple enough, but bear in mind that the coil may have been dropped, so that may be the culprit - it could be shorting out internally - symptoms sort of match up to what I've experienced before. It's an easy one to check if you can get a coil to try.

Once you have oil pressure, and a spark, put the sparks back in and see if it runs. If there's fuel getting through at all you'll hear it trying to fire.

Once you've had it running or been cranking for a while I'd change the oil, as any rust at the top of the bores needs to come out.

When I got my engine running at last, a couple of weeks ago, I'd initially managed to get the ignition leads round the wrong way - well, doesn't everyone. Point is, that I could smell the petrol. Once they were right it was very obvious - well, it ran, so that was a good moment! It was very rough once warmed up though.

I have Dellortos. I bought a book from ebay which explained how to set them up, and a manometer so I could balance them. Basically once they were balanced all I had to do was screw home all the mixture screws then out again by three and a half turns. Then as the engine warmed up from cold, I screwed them in half a turn each at a time, and adjusted the tickover speed back down, until the engine was warm and the tickover stopped increasing with leaning of the mixture. Then I found that I could adjust each screw by quarter turn and tell whether the tickover smoothness improved or not. Apparently if you can't affect the engine tickover with the mixture screws in this way, you have a problem. I found that barrel 4 needed to be set considerably leaner on the mixture than the others, and that at this setting, blipping the throttle gave instant takeup, whereas before it was hesitating; that barrel was too rich. Another nice moment.

The set up should be the same for Webers but the mixture screws have coarser threads, so only come out one and a half turns from fully home; I've never tried with webers though.

But check the coil.

Hope this is of interest.

Sean.

[twincamman]

ok---first the bad -----there may be a bent valve or a broken ring --a compression test will tell this --- now the good the distributer may not be timed correctly or the plug leads may be crossed 1342----a bad plug [fouled or cracked ]---or the motor may not be timed correctly as in the cam shafts to crank pulley to distributor timing so proceed slowly-- --ed

[Hamish Coutts]

Andrew,

If the pump is mechanical watch the rubber diaphram is not knackered and leaking.
If it is, petrol will drip out of a hole in the bottom of the pump onto the ground and also leak into the engine, diluting the oil . It's what mine did the first time I got it started after it was lying about for a few years.
Worth checking.

You may also want to squirt some wd40 down the plug holes just to make sure things have freed up and to help get compression.

Lastly, once I had got oil pressure with the plugs out, I replaced the plugs and squirted some petrol down the carbs (only a few ml. in each) and it started almost first turn on the key.

When yours starts, hopefully there will be no unpleasant noises - like the water pump bearing!

Best of luck,

Hamish.

[M100]

Given the huge costs of replacement parts if it all goes wrong by "just seeing if I can start it" the only sensible solution in my opinion is to strip down, examine and rebuild.

Chances are the water pump is knackered, or you have sticking valves, or stuck rings. Crank it over without a layer of oil between the cam and follower and you might end up needing new cams and followers.

What could be a relatively cheap rebuild with a few gaskets, a light hone, new rings and a new waterpump could quite easily end up costing 4 figures to put right.

[twincamman]

I suggest you turn the motor over with a wrench on the front pulley if you are concerned about a seized engine----ed

[A_Nonny_Mouse]

Hi, Thanks for the advice.

I made a start on cleaning the carbs last night, can still smell the petrol

Something strange has happened to the carb spacers that I can't make any sense of. Behind the o-rings the metal is all pitted and cracked, and there are several holes clean through the spacers. It looks like they've been slightly distorted by a previous owner doing them up way to tight, and this could also expain the cracks, but these holes look almost like corrosion? The o-rings however were in perfect shape...

Has anyone ever seen anything like this before?

[rgh0]

Yes
I have a couple of similar spacers. I always put it down to poor die casting as the thickness is not great. It could be some form of corrossion but not sure what could be the source. I now use the bonded thype flexible spacers rather than the Lotus original type after a guy had a bad crash on the race track when a ring got sucked in a jammed his throttles open.

Rohan

[Elanintheforest]

Andrew...this is a very common cause for the twincam to be running rough or the carbs seeming to be out of tune...yours are pretty bad though! They are very thin castings that are now over 30 years old, so it's not too surprising. I'll bet a lot of folks are running their cars with similar problems, and I reckon that you've found part of your problem.

Is your car the blue one that was on ebay a week or two back? If so I seem to remember that the owner thought that his electronic ignition was playing up? That could be down to just faulty connections and earth points, the earths being again a very common cause for Elan problems...very easy to sort.

If the wiring is a mess under the bonnet get it sorted as part of this exercise and get any connections done properly. Sparks, petrol and fibreglass don't mix well...or rather they mix too well.

Add to this a load of stale petrol not wanting to ignite and some old spark plugs and you may just have nailed the problems....a nice easy fix, hopefully.
Mark

[twincamman]

a little epoxy will solve the problem and stop leaks in the spacers _ seal dept ---ed